


Changing Gears

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It shouldn’t be this hard to teach an angel to drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing Gears

**Author's Note:**

> For hils, who didn’t think I was losing it when I randomly asked her for prompts and gave me Dean teaches fallen!Cas to drive. I had a lot of fun writing this. :D

After a few hours, Dean was beginning to think that giving up would be a better option but, as Bobby and Sam had pointed out several times, they couldn't just leave Castiel at home or drive him everywhere. He wasn’t an experienced hunter and taking him along when they didn’t know if they’d need him would end badly, as Bobby had pointed out when they’d been heading out to hunt a wendigo. Dean was sure that Bobby regretted telling them that as it meant that Castiel usually ended up at Bobby’s house when Sam and Dean went hunting.

Being human meant that he got to learn and enjoy as much of humanity as possible, and that meant learning to drive because there was no way that Bobby was going to drive him across the country every single time it turned out that Sam and Dean needed him to help them with any angel related problems (it had happened twice before Bobby had cornered them in the kitchen and politely suggested that they teach him before they found themselves needing Castiel urgently. 

“You never know when Crowley's going to go back on his deal," he'd added at the end on the conversation and, although Dean knew that there was no way that Crowley would, he'd taken Bobby's hint. 

"Okay, more gas would be good," Dean said, watching Cas check the mirrors again and the car started to creep forward. So far so good. They hadn't hit anything yet -- one of the best things about having a salvage yard so close was that it was difficult to do more damage to these cards than had already been done to them -- and, even though they hadn't moved vary far, Dean counted it as a good thing. After all, when you'd lived your entire life with wings and the ability to be almost anywhere you wanted with a thought, not crashing a car was quite a feat. "Push down on the clutch and put it in second gear." 

He saw the mistake before Castiel even had a chance to make it but had no time to react before Cas slammed on the brakes and sent the car jerking to a halt, the engine protesting. 

"What did I do wrong?" Castiel asked, looking down at the Impala as if it was just being difficult, rather than him making mistakes.

"That was the brake," Dean said slowly, realisation dawning. "You said you'd done this before." 

Castiel looked away. "I told you that I'd been in a car before. I never claimed to have driven one." 

"You didn't tell me that you  _hadn't_  driven one either." 

"It was a lie of omission." 

"It was still a lie." He never would have let Castiel drive the Impala if he'd known. Well, he would have, but he'd have started him off at the very beginning, with more starting and stopping, and less gear changes until he was sure that Cas wasn't going hurt the car or them. His baby had survived demons, angels and trucks; he’d rather she didn’t get destroyed by a fallen angel who’s apparently never driven before.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Dean said, checking his seatbelt. “Push down the clutch and put it in to first.”

 

"Brake!" Dean yelled and Cas slammed on the brakes. For a few seconds after they stopped, a good metre away from the tree, Dean wondered what was different and then he realised: Cas had pushed down the clutch as well as the brake. For the first time, they hadn't stalled. 

"That was better, even after you almost hit the tree. Clutch down." Dean slipped the gear shift in to reverse. "Can you get it at biting point and then take off the brake? Don't come off the clutch completely, though. We're on a slope and there are other cars behind us."

Dean would have ground his teeth if he didn't immediately start thinking about having to visit the dentist if he did it every single time Cas made a mistake. So far, he'd almost hit an old minivan, crushed some empty cans that had been sitting in a recycling bin (almost crushed), come close to hitting Bobby's truck (at least Dean could blame that on Bobby himself for suggesting that Cas be taught to drive) and avoided Crowley by inches when the demon had come out to wonder how the angel was adjusting to 'crawling around with the humans' and if he was  _enjoying_  himself. Dean wasn't sorry about the last one – it wasn’t as if the demon could be killed by a car, but Dean would have enjoyed running him over. What the hell was Crowley even doing there, anyway? Wasn’t he supposed to be making deals and screwing people over?

If he had to teach Cas to drive for much longer, he’d end up with whiplash and dents in his baby and Cas would hit something important, like the house or a person. Thankfully, Bobby and Sam hadn’t left the house since they’d started.

"Let's try this again, and remember: gas is on the right, brake is in the middle and the clutch is on the left." After a moment's thought he added, "And there's a tree three feet away." 

 _Please don't hit it._

 

"I don't think I'm very good at this," Castiel said, so quietly that Dean was sure that the only reason he heard him at all was because Cas had just stalled the engine for the fourth time in the last hour. "I keep doing everything wrong." 

"You're not that bad. Well, you are, but we all are. When my dad was teaching me how to drive, I almost hit a dog trying to park and I'd been learning for weeks, not just a day. You’ll learn. It’ll take a while, but you’ll get to it."  _And not just driving._  

"I can barely the difference between right and left. I could do anything before and now I'm having to learn how to drive like a..." 

"Like a human? Bad news, Cas, you are a human." Dean touched the red marks across Castiel's fingers where the steering wheel had been digging in. "You shouldn't hold on so tight, it's going to throw you off whenever you have to change the gear or change the tape. Think about holding on to something delicate, something that's going to get hurt if you hold on too hard." 

Castiel put his free hand back on the steering wheel. "Like a human soul. If I hold on too tightly, I'll damage it, but if I don't hold on hard enough I'll lose it." His grip was a lot looser than before, but still tight before that he wouldn't lose control easily. It was just right, which was a lot better than what Dean had seen so far. It was a strange comparison, but it seemed to work. 

"Yeah, that's it. That’s it exactly," Dean said breathlessly, releasing Castiel's other hand and watching as he curled his fingers around the wheel and into the same gentle but firm grip as the other. Castiel looked at him and didn’t break eye contact until Dean looked away. It was an almost painful reminder of how he had been in the beginning, a powerful, alien creature who pulled him from Hell and put him back together. Castiel had chosen a side, had chosen to fall and it was hard to see the small signs that he had once been an angel. Dean cleared his throat. He could still feel Castiel’s gaze burning into the side of his face and he knew that, if he looked at him, he’d see Castiel, his eyes a brighter shade of blue than usual in the sunlight, and wouldn’t be able to look away. “Let’s try again.”

“The gas is on the right, the clutch is on the left and the brake is in the middle,” Castiel pushed down the clutch and slipped into first gear without any prompting, looking at Dean and smiling slightly. Dean smiled and shook his head.

Maybe they were finally getting somewhere.


End file.
